Transformers analyzing poetry: multilingual metrical pattern prediction with transfomer-based language models

The splitting of words into stressed and unstressed syllables is the foundation for the scansion of poetry, a process that aims at determining the metrical pattern of a line of verse within a poem. Intricate language rules and their exceptions, as well as poetic licenses exerted by the authors, make calculating these patterns a nontrivial task. Some rhetorical devices shrink the metrical length, while others might extend it. This opens the door for interpretation and further complicates the creation of automated scansion algorithms useful for automatically analyzing corpora on a distant reading fashion. In this paper, we compare the automated metrical pattern identification systems available for Spanish, English, and German, against fine-tuned monolingual and multilingual language models trained on the same task. Despite being initially conceived as models suitable for semantic tasks, our results suggest that transformers-based models retain enough structural information to perform reasonably well for Spanish on a monolingual setting, and outperforms both for English and German when using a model trained on the three languages, showing evidence of the benefits of cross-lingual transfer between the languages.

Auditory beat perception is related to speech output fluency in post-stroke aphasia

Aphasia affects at least one third of stroke survivors, and there is increasing awareness that more fundamental deficits in auditory processing might contribute to impaired language performance in such individuals. We performed a comprehensive battery of psychoacoustic tasks assessing the perception of tone pairs and sequences across the domains of pitch, rhythm and timbre in 17 individuals with post-stroke aphasia and 17 controls. At the level of individual differences we demonstrated a correlation between metrical pattern (beat) perception and speech output fluency with strong effect (Spearman’s rho = 0.72). This dissociated from more basic auditory timing perception, which did not correlate with output fluency. This was also specific in terms of the language and cognitive measures, amongst which phonological, semantic and executive function did not correlate with beat detection. We interpret the data in terms of a requirement for the analysis of the metrical structure of sound to construct fluent output, with both being a function of higher-order “temporal scaffolding”. The beat perception task herein allows measurement of timing analysis without any need to account for motor output deficit, and could be a potential clinical tool to examine this. This work suggests strategies to improve fluency after stroke by training in metrical pattern perception.

Auditory beat perception is related to speech output fluency in post-stroke aphasia

Aphasia affects at least one third of stroke survivors, and there is increasing awareness that more fundamental deficits in auditory processing might contribute to impaired language performance in such individuals. We performed a comprehensive battery of psychoacoustic tasks assessing the perception of tone pairs and sequences across the domains of pitch, rhythm and timbre in 17 individuals with post-stroke aphasia and 17 controls. At the group level, we showed a significant difference in auditory perception in only one test (Dynamic Modulation detection). At the level of individual differences we demonstrated a correlation between metrical pattern (beat) perception and speech output fluency with strong effect (Spearman’s rho = 0.72). This was specific in terms of the auditory tests and dissociated from more basic auditory timing perception, which did not correlate with output fluency. This was also specific in terms of the language and cognitive measures, amongst which phonological, semantic and executive function did not correlate with beat detection. We interpret the data in terms of a requirement for the analysis of the metrical structure of sound to construct fluent output, with both being a function of higher-order “temporal scaffolding”. The beat perception task herein allows measurement of timing analysis without any need to account for motor output deficit, and could be a potential clinical tool to examine this. This work suggests strategies to improve fluency after stroke by training in metrical pattern perception.

Theory and Practice of Long-form Non-isochronous Meters: The Case of the North Indian rūpak tāl

This paper addresses important issues in the theory of meter by means of a detailed study of a particular form of non-isochronous (NI) meter, the North Indian rūpak tāl. Rūpak tāl is described as comprising 7 equal mātrās (time units), organized into three groups (3+2+2 mātrās), and is therefore non-isochronous at the group rather than the beat or subdivision level. The term “long-form non-isochronous meter” is introduced to describe the phenomenon of metrical structures including a non-isochronous pulse level with IOIs >1000ms, of which this is an example. This phenomenon is explored with the aid of empirical analysis of a corpus of recordings of rūpak tāl performances, focusing particularly on vocal performances in khyāl style. This empirical data is considered in light of extant literature on Indian metrical organization, on ethnomusicological theories of aksak, on psychological theories of rhythm perception in NI-meters, and on metrical theory more broadly. The implications for a general theory of musical meter are then considered, leading to an argument that (a) while theorization is not a necessary condition of metrical perception, a recognized metrical pattern must be treated not only as a form of perception based on the entrainment of attention (London 2012), but as a form of culturally-shared knowledge contributing to top-down processing of meter; and (b) the theorization and representation of aspects of metrical structure means that metrical cycles are not limited to the extent of the psychological present.

Arabic influence on metre in Somali Sufi religious poetry

It has generally been assumed that there has not been any direct influence on Somali poetic metre from the metrical forms of Arabic. For the most part, this certainly seems to hold, but this article presents a poem which is of a type on which, it is argued, Arabic influence can be seen. The poem, ‘Taaj Awliyo’ by Sheekh Caaqib Cabdullaahi Jaamac (ca. 1922-?) is presented in detail and, although it has been described as being in the jiifto metre, it is demonstrated that this description of the metre is incorrect. It actually follows a previously undocumented metrical pattern which is the equivalent of four maqalaay warlaay lines. The article also shows how the metrical pattern can be seen as a Somalized analogue of the Arabic kāmil metre in its majzūʾ or dimetric form. Evidence is given both from comparison of the line structure itself and from brief comments on reports of what the poet himself had said. The poem considered in detail is part of the Qaadiriya Sufi tradition in which poetry composed in Arabic plays an important role including poems in the kāmil metre.

Beyond Meaning: Differing Fates of Some Modernist Poets’ Investments of Belief in Sounds

Modernist American poets Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams insisted on the values of linguistic sound beyond the semantic. Stevens focused on the modulations of the sounds and lexical stresses of individual words within the meter. Frost and Williams focused on the less predictable intonational contours of phrases and sentences (although for Frost, the intonational contours play with and against the metrical pattern, whereas for Williams, lines tend to align with intonational phrases, turning prosodic speech tunes into a prosodic verse measure). Drawing on recent cognitive studies that pertain to the processing of speech sound and birdsong, this article suggests a need to revise critical assessments of the poets’ investments of belief in sound; it also considers why, given this research, Frost’s theory of sentence sounds has, perhaps unfairly, fared a worse critical reception.

Farming for the Few

The point of departure for this chapter is a little known work by Jožef Šubic, whose translation of Virgil’s Georgics, published in 1863, although largely unknown outside scholarly circles, nonetheless offers an important background to the Slovenian school of translation of Greek and Latin texts and of classics in general. Marinčič argues that this text, written in a hybrid metrical pattern, is by no means a literary masterpiece, but it is a groundbreaking work reflecting the contemporary debates concerning the use of classical metrical forms and implicitly opposing the Romantic ideology of agricultural self-sufficiency, which, in the course of the nineteenth century, resulted in a widespread prejudice against translation of world literature.

A cognitive analysis of metrical irregularities in the ‘Ὥσπερ ξένοι’ book epigrams

This article considers the variation in the metres of the ‘ὥσπερ ξένοι’ epigrams, collected in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE). In its canonical form, these epigrams follow a dodecasyllabic metrical pattern. The seemingly unmetrical decasyllabic and decatetrasyllabic variants are explained from a cognitive-linguistic perspective as the pairing of different cola – 5+5 and 7+7 instead of the usual 7+5 or 5+7. From this perspective, cola can be equated with the cognitive ‘idea’ or ‘intonation units’ (IUs) used in ordinary speech.

Canons as Hypermetrical Transitions in Mozart

This article explores gradual hypermetrical shifts, or hypermetrical transitions, in imitative contexts. The concept of hypermetrical transition, introduced by David Temperley, presupposes metrical conflict in the course of the transition. My principal goal is to place imitative metrical conflicts in the context of Schenkerian theory and to propose that each imitative part may suggest its own middleground structure, based on this part’s individual metrical pattern. The relative validity of the two resulting voice-leading graphs, based on harmonic and other musical cues, is then viewed as a tool for “measuring” the smoothness of the shift. The article includes analyses of several imitative passages from Mozart’s chamber works and culminates in a discussion of a lengthy canon from the String Quartet K. 499, movement 1, an exemplary case of a smooth hypermetrical transition.